Wednesday, June 15, 2016

the mermaids have arrived!

This morning, got my hot little hands on these copies of SALVAGE (which you can pick up your very own at the BLP site.). Whenever a new book comes out, I try to think about all the work it took to get there. The writing of the poems, the assembling of the pieces. These poems were mostly written from 2012-2014, when I first vowed that I would write a book about mermaids (and it's not all mermaids, but the "Shipwrecks of Lake Michigan" makes up a huge chunk and sort of centerpiece of the manuscript There are also poems about illness and creepy midwestern landscapes. Unlike the last book (major characters in minor films), which did feel a little like the blood jet kind of poetry, a sort of purging, there is less purging here and more contemplativeness. More stillness.

I also felt a little bit more like I know what I'm doing when it comes to putting together a book that is less of a focused project sort of thing (like girl show or the shared properties of water and stars) I definitely feel like these sort of books (which includes in the bird museum and major characters) are more like collection of short stories than a novel. The newest book just picked up by Noctuary is similar--four distinct parts that stand alone but work together thematically.